Ophthalmology

The Australian Corneal Graft Registry

The Australian Corneal Graft Registry (ACGR) operates an Australia-wide register of human corneal transplants. It opened in May 1985, celebrating 30 years of data collection in 2015.

The purpose of the Register is to collect information that will inform clinical practice and to identify risk factors for poor patient outcomes. It currently contains records of over 30,000 corneal transplants, some of which have been followed for over 30 years.

All information is de-identified, to maintain confidentiality of the database.

The latest report from the ACGR was released in 2015. The report included data on both full-thickness penetrating grafts and partial-thickness lamellar grafts. It focused on grafts performed from the year 2000 onwards, and the census date for the grafts analysed was 31/03/2014. Data were analysed for the approximately 11,000 penetrating corneal grafts registered since 2000, plus just under 5,000 lamellar grafts registered over the same period.

At registration, we seek information on the recipient, the donor, the eye bank practices and the operative procedure. Follow-up then occurs at approximately yearly intervals for an indefinite period, and ceases upon loss of the graft, or the death or loss-to-follow-up of the patient. At each round of follow-up, we request information on the graft and visual outcome, and on relevant post-operative events and treatments.

The data are entered into an Access database and checked for consistency. Descriptive, univariate and multivariate analyses are subsequently performed using SPPS and Stata software, and the report is eventually collated.